The state Board of Pardons concurred with parole officials Thursday in refusing to release the 69-year-old Thomas, despite a commutation signed by then-Gov. Robert P. Casey in 1995.

"I don't know that he'll be shocked. He's been disappointed before," Thomas' attorney, Leonard Sosnov, said after the board's 3-2 decision. Sosnov said he may appeal the ruling in court.

Thomas, who has maintained his innocence for 33 years, was convicted in Philadelphia of the 1964 murder of a 12-year-old girl.

It was later learned that the chief witness in the case, a forensic scientist, had fabricated her credentials. The deception was not presented to a second jury, which convicted Thomas again.

Centurion Ministries, a Princeton-based group that works to free prisoners it thinks are wrongly jailed, took up Thomas' case several years ago. It convinced the pardons board to recommend that Thomas' sentence be commuted from life in prison to life on parole. Casey agreed in his last days in office, but Gov. Tom Ridge has refused to carry out the commutation.

Though the pardons board voted 4-0 in 1994, with one abstention, to support Thomas, the panel now has new members.